Women We Love: Catherine Deveny

Welcome to the first in what will become a regular feature on The Dawn Chorus, Women We Love: interviews with women we find inspiring, be they trailblazers from back in the day, or those just now rising up the ranks. We hope that, you, too will be inspired by their stories and their fine work, no matter what field it’s in.

Catherine Deveny (pictured with her partner Marz, at the launch for her book It’s Not My Fault They Publish Them; photo by Melanie Dove) is one of Australia’s most noted columnists, and has also written extensively for telev

ision, and for her own stand-up comedy, as well as having published a number of books. The pieces she writes for The Age’s Opinion page and Saturday’s A2 are frequently polarising and often controversial, but always delivered fearlessly and with a scythe-like wit. She is not afraid to attack the Government, the upwardly mobile, those who drive bigger cars than she does, or anything and anyone, really.

But what’s most remarkable about Catherine’s work, apart from its regularly sidesplitting hilarity, is that she isn’t simply a ’shock hack’, penning up-yours columns to keep the lefties happy and the conservatives ropable – perhaps her most “shocking” attribute, in a market filled with cold and objective copy, is her heart. In pieces like ‘To everyday heroes: Just. Keep. Going‘ [The Age, May 28th 2008], Catherine imbues her writing with feeling and empathy, and you can’t help but be moved.

Catherine very kindly let herself be The Dawn Chorus’ inaugural interviewee, and attacked our questions with her trademark wit, always with that big heart beating just behind it – just the way we love her.

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TDC: When did you decide writing was going to be “it” for you?
CD: “I have always written. Journals, letters, graffiti. I was never one of those kids writing their own fabulous adventure books. I was just writing letters to nana thanking her for the chocolate biscuits and the hand knitted jumper that looked like an abortion made of wool. I actually always wanted to be Magda Szubanski. But I can’t act. So writing it is. I never have a term with the label ‘writer’. For me it’s like girl, boy, short, tall, gay or straight. You either are a writer or not. There are people who write and there are writers. Big difference. Writers have to write. It’s like having a shit. And some of it is shit. Exhibit A: Every column I’ve ever written.”

To Pay For Your Pilfering, You Must Be Subjected To A Heavy Punishment

Is this just because there are some rogue, vigilante security guards in this world who don’t feel that the justice system is hard enough on crime, or is this because well, you know, they are just rapists?

The Brisbane Times reports:

PORT MORESBY – Police in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands’ region are investigating claims a security guard forced a suspected 15-year-old female shoplifter to pay for her crime with sex.

The young girl told police on the weekend security guards working at the Rainbow Store in Mt Hagen, Western Highlands Province, suspected her of stealing.

The guards detained her in their office before one forced her to have sex with him.

PNG’s Post-Courier newspaper reports the girl reluctantly gave in as she was scared.

Of course she was scared, what with being only 15-years-old aka a minor.

But the headline of this article is most disturbing:

Sex used as punishment for shoplifting

But let this learn you youngens next time you try to nick something. You’ll get to have SEX when you steal something, according to the Brisbane Times.

It is rape you morons, not sex.

“Bully” Demelza Wins ANTM 4; Vogue Forums Explode

Demelza Reveley took out the Cycle 4 honours in the Australia’s Next Top Model finale last night, which prompted a near critical mass explosion of outrage on the Vogue Forums’ ANTM4 thread at the result – and rightly so.

The rep that Reveley gained throughout her time on the show has followed her out the other side and into the industry. There has not been a single media piece reporting the news, to my knowledge, that has not mentioned Reveley’s bullying behaviour whilst in the model house.

The Voguettes began a call for boycotts of all the sponsors involved with the show – principally Napoleon Perdis Cosmetics, who will feature the 16-year-old in a beauty campaign, and Vogue Australia, who give the winner an eight-page photo shoot – and for letters of complaint to be sent to Fox8 to make a statement about their perceived support of bullying by way of allowing Reveley to stay in the competition, let alone win it.

The issue at hand is that AusNTM is not real life; a model in the real world who behaved as Reveley did would likely not be booked for long. But by broadcasting her behaviour and then allowing her to continue to be celebrated implicitly sends a warped message to the – largely young – viewers of the show.

Her Ex May Be The Criminal, But Anne Hathaway Is The ‘Bad Guy’

If you’re a regular reader of the Hollywood gossip sites, you would’ve been following the unfolding tale of Get Smart star Anne Hathaway’s recent ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri’s fraud charges; he allegedly scammed investors in the States with a US$6 million property scam.

The Feds are now on Follieri’s case, but the blogosphere and the gossip columns seem to be more concerned with painting Hathaway in a dark light for apparently tattling on her man, flinging about jibes like “never trust a dame” and this corker from The Age’s syndicated BANG! piece: “Did Anne dob in her man?”

A friend of Follieri speculated to the New York Daily News newspaper: “It makes sense. Hathaway is referred to as his former girlfriend in the FBI indictment even though her spokesman never confirmed they broke up.

So hang on, what was she supposed to do? Play Goody Hathaway and keep the Feds occupied with a slice of freshly baked apple pie while Raff hopped out the back window and into a getaway car?

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Do I Like Porn? Don’t Ask Me, I’m Just A Girl! *Giggle*

Another day, another infuriating and thinly-veiled post-feminist yarn from Samantha Brett’s Ask Sam! (her exclamation point) blog for the Fairfax Digital network. Sam celebrates the new financial year by kicking off with a bang – well, rather, a wet squib: the old “do women like porn?” chestnut. Or, as she puts it, “Why Women Hate Porn“.

Except that, uh, it seems that despite her title, Sam comes out batting for porn – so long as it’s a) cool and b) something ’sexy’ to do with one’s (male) partner. But we’ll get to the latter later, first let’s deal with a):

Some view this newfound sense of sexual freedom as a by-product of the rise of porn star as the new “it” female profession. Think Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends, Kim Kardashian and Denise Richards to name just a few.

It’s an “it” profession for females, is it? (And would Denise Richards really be pleased to see herself described as a porn star?) I must have missed that particular careers memo.

Sam then goes on to, er, well: